S.African ex-union official gunned down on volatile platinum belt

JOHANNESBURG Nov 6 Attackers gunned down a
former senior union official at platinum producer Lonmin
, stoking political and industrial tensions on South
Africa's volatile platinum belt.

Police said the former National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
shop steward was ambushed outside his home in the mining town of
Mooinooi on Sunday night and died of his injuries on Tuesday.

He was the fourth person in the region with links to the NUM
to have been murdered in the past three months.

The union is a close ally of the ruling African National
Congress. Tens of thousands of NUM members were poached last
year by a new rival, the Association of Mineworkers and
Construction Union (AMCU), in a turf war that killed dozens of
people and sparked widespread industrial unrest.

Lonmin, the world's third largest platinum producer, was at
its epicentre. Police shot dead 34 striking workers at its
Marikana operation in August 2012, the deadliest security
incident since the end of apartheid.

Industrial action in the mining region northwest of
Johannesburg has been less violent this year but members of both
unions are still being killed and gangland style slayings are a
common feature of the shanty towns that ring the mines.

The killings come as the NUM is trying to lay the groundwork
to retake the platinum belt, a campaign with high political
stakes for the ANC as the party looks to rally support ahead of
general elections due next year.

MILITANCY

In the latest case, Percy Letanang was shot seven times by
unknown assailants. Police were investigating but had made no
arrests yet, police spokesman Thulani Ngubane said.

COSATU, the umbrella union which NUM falls under, said in a
statement that Letanang had taken a voluntary severance package
recently after Lonmin recognized AMCU as its majority union. A
Lonmin source confirmed this was the case.

"COSATU is outraged by the continuation of what are clearly
deliberate assassinations of NUM members in the area, and the
failure of the police to arrest most of the perpetrators and
bring them to justice," it said.

Three weeks ago, a senior NUM official at Lonmin was also
gunned down in a hail of bullets at Marikana.

Over 7,000 NUM members are currently on strike at mid-tier
platinum producer Northam and its demands of pay hikes
of up to 43 percent signal it is trying compete with AMCU, which
has attracted members with its militancy.